County takes steps toward 2050 plan revisions

The guidelines for the layout and makeup of future villages in rural Sarasota County could change under proposed amendments to the long-range growth plan.

The alterations relax some zoning requirements to entice developers to build east of Interstate 75.

The growth management plan, dubbed 2050, was finalized in 2004 and reopened in May. It was intended to reduce urban sprawl and create housing clusters around walkable village centers. Only one such community, Grand Palm near Venice, has been created.

After developers raised concerns, saying the restrictions are too stringent and prevent growth, county commissioners told staff to revisit the policy.

On Tuesday, the county’s planners offered amendments to some of 2050’s rules about different housing types, open space and village centers, including:

• Lowering the required number of different housing types in hamlets and villages.

• Reducing the required amount of conservation areas by 250 acres, to 750, if objectives for environmental protection are addressed.

• Allowing a village’s commercial hub to be located anywhere that is easily accessible and next to neighborhoods, instead of requiring it to be close to the village center. The change would also allow more than one commerical center, if the market supports it.

Supporters urged commissioners to advance the amendments. Among them, attorney Michael Furen, who has been involved in the 2050 process.

He said that “2050 does need some work to be a document that is implemented, rather than sitting on the shelf as it has for many, many years.”

County commissioners agreed, voting unanimously to send the proposed zoning changes to a public meeting Oct. 7, then to the Planning Commission, before returning to the Board of Commissioners in late November.

The amendments are the first phase of proposed changes to the plan and are less controversial than others to come.

Next, county planners will look into comprehensive plan changes that do not deviate greatly from the fundamental values of the 2050 plan.

Finally, they will review policy changes that may vary from those principles.

Of the proposed zoning amendments, the commercial center change is the most substantive, Commissioner Nora Patterson said, and the rest are primarily clarifications.

In May, Patterson was the only commissioner to vote against revisiting 2050. She called the process “truncated,” and said she would have liked more public input and meetings to inform residents about the plan.

“If the regulations are gutted, then the concept that was promised to people . . . is destroyed,” Patterson said. “I’m worried.”

But, she added, if the rest of the proposed changes are along the lines of the zoning amendments, her worries will be alleviated.

“I don’t object to a new look. What I object to is the conclusion that the whole thing’s unworkable,” Patterson said.

The Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations is one of several groups that have raised concerns about potential 2050 changes. CONA is particularly concerned with a requirement that communities developed under the 2050 plan must pay for their own infrastructure, such as libraries, roads and schools, instead of having county taxpayers subsidize them.

Any changes to that policy would come later in the process.

But the zoning amendments presented this week are still problematic, CONA President Lourdes Ramirez said. She disagrees with the additional flexibility proposed for city center locations.

If a developer places commercial hubs near the edge of a developed area, “then it doesn’t become walkable. Then everybody has to use cars,” she said.

She was also opposed to decreasing the required number of housing types in a community. The standards were set to avoid cookie-cutter housing tracts.

“We’re going to get the same, standard gated community project that we’ve seen over and over again,” Ramirez said.

Allen Parsons, the county’s long range planning division manager, said if those amendments are passed, it does not necessarily mean there will be less diversity in types of housing.

If developers opt to use a wide variety of styles, they could still do so.